1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for recording an audio signal.
2. Description of Background Information
In the recording of music software produced by using a recording medium such as a CD (Compact Disc), an MD (Mini Disc), and a DAT (Digital Audio Tape), it is general to record, as components of subcode information, a music piece number signal representing a music number and an index number signal representing the number of each measure (fragment) of a music piece, besides the audio signal corresponding to each music piece.
In a playing apparatus, such as a CD player, for playing back the recorded music software, the track number signal is retrieved from the subcode information, besides the retrieval of the audio signal from the recording medium so that the music piece number is identified and a fast access to the head part of a desired music piece is enabled by using the retrieved track number signal. Furthermore, by using the index number signal retrieved from the subcode information, measures existing in one music piece are identified, and the access to a head part to a desired measure of the music piece is enabled. The index number signal has a value "0" for a silent portion of the music signal, i.e. an intervening pause between tracks (music pieces), and is set to a value "1" upon starting of the first measure. Thereafter, the index number signal is incremented by one each time a change of the measure in the music piece occurs. Most CD players are designed to perform an index search operation in such a way that a change position of the index number signal is detected in response to the user's index search instruction and the head portion of the arbitrarily selected measure of the music piece is searched for by using such a change position.
Therefore, in a recording apparatus for the dubbing of music pieces from music software recorded on the above-described recording medium, such as an apparatus using a CD-R (Compact Disc Recordable), the subcode information containing the track number signal and the index number signal is recorded together with the audio signal.
However, in conventional apparatuses for the recording of the audio signal and the subcode information containing the track number signal and the index number signal, there has been a problem that the subcode signal representing the index number "0" indicative of the pause portion before a first music piece will not be recorded on the recording medium when the audio signal is recorded by an automatic recording function. With a recording medium carrying such an index number signal, the fast access to the first measure of a desired music piece cannot be performed because the detection of a change position the index number signal from "0" to "1" is not possible.